Dino Resurrection
by batsh-crazy
Summary: A rewrite of Power Rangers: Dino Thunder. Long and in-depth.


Author's Note: Well, here it is. Here is the grand unveiling of my long-form fanfiction! I apologize to anyone who started following me for the fics I've made in different fandoms, uh... I'll probably still write small things for other fandoms. But this, this is where my heart truly lies. I am sorry. :'( This isn't what anyone wanted. I already have 30,000 words written, so this will update, and update regularly for a while. With that, here we go!

* * *

Year 1 AZD (After Death of Zordon)

Tommy drew himself to his feet and dragged his sleeve across his forehead. It was later in the day than he was expecting, and he was decidedly baked. He was starting to understand why he wasn't supposed to be working in the midday sun by safety requirements. He grabbed some water and poured it over his head. He felt it, though. The artifacts were so close. There was clearly a lot of power contained in the stones beneath him, and he wanted to touch it.

He shook himself like a dog, spraying water all over the sandstone, speckling the steps he had carefully chiseled into the hole he was digging.

"Hey Angie," he called, "I think it's time to head in."

He saw a head poke up from the rocks.

"You're right, Tommy," the voice called, as a woman emerged, "I think it's tuna sandwiches for lunch again, though, so I'm not too excited to get back."

Angie joined Tommy in the trudge back to the mess hall. Within moments of entering the sweet coolness, she was all business, dragging him over to a pair talking quietly in the corner. "Tommy, I'd like you to meet Dr. Anton Mercer, here. He's interested in funding our project. Anton, this is the student I told you about, the one with the – unique – qualifications." Tommy extended his hand to a reserved looking man, feeling excessively grimy.

"Surely you're not going to go through with this, Anton," interjected a voice at the man's elbow. Tommy examined the person standing behind him with a frown. He was tall, but looked to be not much older than Tommy himself, and was surveying the place with disgust. Tommy assumed he was an assistant to Dr. Mercer. "I can't deny their results, but why this whole 'ranger' initiative? Ridiculous! Giant robots? It doesn't make any sense!"

"An ancient and powerful being put together this system. Do you really think you know better than him?" Tommy responded, "and they're Zords, not robots."

The assistant blinked at him. "What does that matter?"

"It's only in deference to Zordon, who gave his life after millions of years of existence to eradicate all evil threatening earth– ," Tommy began, but he felt a hand on his shoulder. Angie squeezed it, when he looked at her, and he stopped.

"Smitty," Angie addressed the boy, "Tommy was a ranger. He knew Zordon personally." So stop being an asshole was only implied. "If you would like to discuss the strengths and challenges of our project, Tommy here has the most extensive knowledge."

Smitty raised his eyebrows. "I – I'm sorry for your loss." He paused a moment, then continued, "but that doesn't mean that what you are doing here is – " This time Anton Mercer was the one to reign in his assistant.

"Tell me," he quietly addressed Tommy, "why _you_ think it's important."

"Earth is vulnerable," Tommy said simply. "There is so much here: so much power that we don't understand, so many artifacts and potential rangers. I've seen immense power rise and fall so many times. There's no way the rest of the universe or the rest of humanity is going to leave that alone."

"I thought you said–" Smitty tried to interject, but Tommy raised a hand.

"Zordon gave his life to eradicate evil in the universe. He might have even succeeded. But that doesn't keep protecting us. New monsters will form. New evils will be created, that's just how free will works. We need to be ready."

Anton Mercer raised his eyebrows. "And why not arm ourselves with missiles or any of the other arts of war we are already familiar with?"

Tommy shook his head, "It's better to work within the framework of alien diplomacy than against it. You don't want to see what they might shoot back."

"Well, maybe I don't," Anton said with a smile. "Why don't you tell me more about it?"

* * *

Year 2.5 AZD

Well, this wasn't the way things were supposed to go, thought Tommy as the walls crashed down around him, destroying years of work. Anton Mercer's work, Tommy's work, and some other people's work, too, he supposed. He wanted to save it; he wanted to fix it. The problem with working like an evil mastermind on a remote island was that no one was going to be able to get there in time, even if he could get to the communications center to let someone know. He stuffed a box inside his shirt for safekeeping and turned to run. He regretted that he couldn't do anything else.

He ran down the hallway, ahead of the explosions that seemed to be making short work of the equipment he had so painstakingly assembled. There wasn't time to think about that now, though. He heard footsteps coming after him. Hopefully that was Smitty following him and not whoever had rigged all these explosives.

Someone wanted this project gone.

The ceiling started to crack above him.

He ran faster.

Suddenly everything was heat and light and sound. His vision blurred and he was flying through the air. An explosion must have caught him. The skin of his back screamed at him. Clearly no one was supposed to survive this. Fortunately for him, they didn't know they were dealing with an ex-Power Ranger.

His training took over, and he landed with a roll.

They probably didn't know, right? He looked around. The helicopter pad was blown and the communications tower was down. The explosions continued. Someone knew what was going on around here. He hoped the zords would get out okay.

What was the best way out of here? If he ran to the docks, he could maybe get the boat to somewhere civilized.

He took off towards the coast.

A dark shape moved in the trees to his left. What was that? He turned his head to see and almost ran head on into another.

Tyrannodrones.

They slowly filled in the trees around him. The one in front sidled closer.

That didn't make sense. Tommy looked closer at the object in front of him. It was dark, reptilian, but its body was largely humanoid. It certainly looked like the test organism he had developed and dubbed tyrannodrones. Perhaps they had gotten out in all the explosions. They were obviously programmed to keep him from leaving the area; he recognized it as one of their test modes. He hoped it was just a malfunction with the software. Maybe some of them would even survive the blasts and he could come back and collect them.

Still, he didn't remember their being so many of them.

He faced off against them. He had developed their driving program based on his own martial arts knowledge. He knew exactly what they could do. He could take this.

He traded blows with the dozen of them. It was just a warm-up fight, nothing he hadn't done before. He pushed one into another, taking both out of the fight.

Another explosion went off behind him.

He needed to get off this island, he remembered. He started fighting his way through the robots this time, punching and kicking with more purpose, hitting more of their weak points to disable them faster.

There was a clear path through the trees in front of him. He took it, running through them to the edge of the… forest?

A cliff dropped off below him. That was why the trees stopped.

He looked down at the rocky coast below him. The water was way down there. There were plenty of rocks.

He looked back at the island, at the robots chasing after him. Robots he had made, threatening to add him to the list of inventors killed by their inventions. He didn't really have a choice.

He ran towards the sky in front of him and he jumped.

* * *

Year 4 AZD

Tommy woke up on the floor, again.

He groaned, holding his head, and curling up into the fetal position. He knew this was a bad rut to get into, he knew he was going to look back on these days and wish they hadn't happened, that he had just been a little smarter, a little better at enduring the pain. Drinking this much wasn't the best plan for a fighter. He could feel it when he practiced; he was getting weaker. He reached out to touch a blue stone on his dresser, next to a yellow and a red one. These were the only things he had saved from that island, and he liked touching them, remembering. It helped ease the fact that he hadn't gotten any _one_ off the island. It didn't hurt that they were enormous power sources, and though they had never bonded to him, they were prone to recharging his Zeo crystal a little.

What did it even matter, though?

He ran his fingers through his spiked hair. That was going to be a mess to wash out. He found something stuck in there.

What? How had he gotten gum in his hair?

Was it even possible to get that out?

He sat up with a start as he heard the door open. He hadn't invited anyone to his apartment. Had there been a girl…? No, there was no way he would make that mistake again.

He snuck through the door to his bedroom, hiding in the hallway as he listened. His mind was racing. Could it be someone after the work that he did? Could it be Cogs? Puttys? He might be hung over, but he could still over power or out smart any of those. Finally, something to fight.

He checked his Zeo reserves. He could feel his residual morphing energy was less than he would have liked, but he thought he could still morph if he had to. If it were human, he wouldn't have to. He could take any human that came through that door.

"Tommy?" called a female voice.

Oooh. He sighed with regret. No fighting for him today.

"Hayley?" He asked, coming around the corner. "Can't you knock?" He took a deep breath, letting the morphing energy fade away and feeling his heart slow back to normal speeds. He was starting to feel that hangover again as the adrenaline left him.

Hayley was standing in the doorway looking a little sheepish. She had put a grocery bag on the floor and was hanging up her coat. "I thought you gave me a key for a reason."

"Yeah, to water my plants…" he sighed. "No, it's fine. You know me; I'm jumpy. I'm sorry. What brings you here?"

Hayley just looked at him. "You look like a mess. That's what brings me here."

She knelt to pull food out of the bag. "I heard from Alex that you were at the bar all night. Alone. It sounds like that's the third time already this month. You never used to go bar hopping at MIT. This isn't like you." She stared very intently at the bag. "Tommy, I'm worried about you."

He groaned and walked behind her to close the door. "I'm okay, Hayley. I promise," he tried. He really didn't want to do this now. He didn't want to have to fake composure for her when his head hurt this much. How much had he drunk last night? The powers left to him (just the dregs of a power, really, after most of it was upgraded to the Turbo powers and passed on to another) from the Zeo crystal generally granted him super healing. It tended to make his mornings pain free. He was mildly impressed at himself for out drinking his powers.

She looked up at him and her forehead creased in concern. "Tommy, you really look bad."

"Thanks Hayley, nothing like kind words in the morning." He sank down beside her, hoping that it looked more like comfort than that he was worn out from standing. Was he worn out from standing? Surely not. But… maybe Hayley was more right than he thought. He sprawled out, back against the door. It might be okay if he let himself go a little.

"Tommy, it's one in the afternoon," she said brusquely, standing up. "I'm here to make you lunch." She looked him over with a smirk. "Though maybe it should have been breakfast. You would have really freaked out if I had shown up in your room with pancakes, telling you what a wonderful night it was…"

He rolled his eyes. Why did she have to keep bringing that up? It was one time, and yeah, he hadn't even remembered the girl when he woke up in the morning. He hadn't known what to do. He carefully ate the pancakes she made, shared his shower and encouraged her to leave. She looked like a lost puppy when he refused to give her his phone number. He knew he was having a hard time, he wasn't prepared to go dragging someone else down with him. "Hayley, that's not funny." He never would have done something like that with someone he cared about. Hayley was his friend, not some girl to bring home in a drunken stupor. Right? He shook the thoughts out of his head.

"It's pretty funny." She smiled. "You called me in such a panic. I mean, everyone's done that once or twice, right? Now you've had your once. You like grilled cheese, right?"

Tommy nodded.

"And I'm making soup. With lots of vegetables."

"Hayley, I don't think it's as bad as you're making this out to be. I eat vegetables."

"Yeah?" She looked up from the chopping board. "How am I supposed to know that? I hardly see you."

"You know I've been busy."

She looked a little sad. "I have too. I missed you. We used to talk all the time, even when you were on that island, but now…" she shrugged. "I can't even tell you what I'm working on."

"Me neither. I wish they would put us on the same project again." Tommy missed the days when he could meet up with Hayley over lunch or trouble shoot with her in the evenings. He was the one who had gotten her into all this ranger business. He had met her when he started at MIT and dragged her along when the ranger program nigh took over his life, largely to avoid the ire she would have had for him if he hadn't let her get her hands on the alien technology. She had been a steady presence in the program through everything that had happened, all the government contractors and private funders, the destruction of the Lightspeed Initiative, the destruction of the island, the destruction of everyone on the island…

He stood up. He didn't like wallowing in the best of times, and he was pretty close to breaking right now. He looked at Hayley. She clearly thought he was past the breaking point, but he didn't think that was true. Sure, he was going out to bars and sometimes getting really drunk, but everyone did that, right? He was still getting his work done.

"Tommy…" Hayley said hesitantly. "Have you ever thought of doing something else?"

Tommy just looked at her.

"I know. I know you only have a few months before you defend your thesis, but do you really want this to be the rest of your life? Rangers, and secrets, and government research? It seems like you're just hanging on in the hopes that you'll get another chance to be a ranger. What if you became a martial arts instructor or something?" She shrugged. "I know you enjoyed that when you did it in high school. I just don't think you're happy here."

He stared at her. Had she really said that? How could he give up on a project that Anton had made his life? That had caused his death? He couldn't consider it. What was she even thinking? Didn't she care about the lives that were lost, the lives… Maybe if he made her angry, she would just leave him alone. "Oh, and you're happy here?" He glared at her, but she stood her ground. "You're also in the middle of all this mess. You don't even believe in the work we do? You know it's dangerous, so what are you sticking around for? Have you told your boyfriend, or-or your parents, how dangerous the work you are doing is? I hope not, it's not allowed!"

"Tommy, calm down." She wasn't going to play. "Eric knows that the work I'm doing is dangerous, but important, and that's all I would want him to know. I don't need to worry about people interrogating him for information, which you would realize if you had anyone in your life." She swiftly breathed in, as if she might want to take it back. She softened it a little with "anyone who isn't already mixed up in all this, anyway."

She left the soup pot she was stirring to come sit next to him. "I didn't want to get in a fight. I just wanted to help." She reached out to touch his hand, hesitantly.

Tommy pulled away, but he appreciated it anyway. "I know. Thanks, Hayley, I just don't feel like I should just give up."

"Tommy, the island is gone, you have to let that go. That isn't giving up."

"I can't just do that so easily, you know? Not when we don't even know what happened."

"I know."

They sat in silence for a bit, listening to the boiling water on the stove and the birds outside the window.

"Did you know Anton was planning on making that island a vacation home, eventually?"

Hayley smiled. "I didn't. I always thought it was the most ridiculous thing that he just had an island sitting around to devote to the ranger project. That man had far too much money."

"He was a good man, though," Tommy said quietly. "Of all the people to have too much money…"

"Yeah, he definitely was." Hayley looked down at her fingertips for a bit. "We lost a number of good people when that island blew up. Anton, Angie, …Smitty…"

Tommy grimaced. "I even miss Smitty sometimes, do you know? He hated the project, but still, every time I…" Tommy stopped. "Well, it's confidential. But I use some of the stuff he taught me. Often."

"We all learned a lot from them," Hayley said softly. "I never worked directly with her, but Angie always looked out for me, you know? Remember how she used to go around bragging about us, because we were MIT students? Like sophomore level students – one in computer science, one in chemistry! – knew anything about archeology."

"And we still don't know anything! None of us do, humanity is doomed," Tommy sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I thought it would be so straightforward. I thought I learned so much from Zordon and Dimitria that I could get everything working the way they would do it."

"Tommy, Zordon was ancient. You don't have to have it all figured out. You have help, you know? What about Billy, and those three politicians from your original team? They have all been helping, even if you haven't been in contact with them. Personally, I think we've done pretty well for a doomed race," Hayley said dryly. "Look, why don't you go take a shower? I'll finish up in here. I think you'll feel less doomed after that."

After the food was ready, he had showered, and she had cut the gum out of his hair, they sat down at his counter to eat. He considered the surface again, thinking that he might want to clean the kitchen table sometime.

"Well, Tommy, despite appearances, I didn't just come here to chastise you."

He choked on his soup and looked up at her. "Really?"

She shook her head. "I don't really agree with this, but I do have a message for you, all government official." She shrugged. "I know you won't refuse, but I wanted you to think about all of this a little. And I was worried about you."

"Okay, what is it?" He had no idea what could be so special that she would go through all this.

"There has been some suspicious activity on the moon." Hayley walked back over to her coat and pulled out some documents. "Cogs have been spotted. Andros has been keeping an eye on it."

"Cogs, on the moon? But they were all destroyed."

"Yeah, I know, you mentioned that before. Here's the information. There seems to be an initiative by the vestiges of the Machine Empire to dig up Serpentera?"

"What? There are so many things that don't make sense about that. How did they survive? How did Serpentera get on the moon?" Tommy grabbed the documents, looking for answers.

"It's all there," Hayley said tiredly. "Anyway, they want you to lead some of the other rangers against them. They don't think the new group is really up for it by themselves, and you always were good at leading."

A fight with the Machine Empire? That was something he could get behind. "I'll do it."


End file.
